Forest People
by FluffDucklings
Summary: Arthur finds himself thrice in the presence of a mysterious man. Rated for... darker themes and myschivious fairies.


A/N: I wrote this way back in March for an English Creative Writing Essay incorporating our own version of a fairy tale/myth. I chose the Slenderman. (Just take out the spaces) www. mythicalcreaturesquide .com/page/ Slender+Man  
>I got some obscene grade on it... An 89 I think. Since almost no one I asked had never heard of the Slenderman, I got a low grade in the section on whether the fairy tale or myth was clearly identifiable in the beginning. :  But, now I'm just rambling about my grades~  
>I don't own Hetalia, Slenderman, or my English teacher's grading system. :3<p>

* * *

><p>The Forest People<p>

Arthur took a long drag from his cigarette and snuffed out the rest with the heel of his boot. A frozen December breeze pushed past him, making the short Briton shiver underneath his green military-style jacket. 'Catch my death of cold out here,' he thought bitterly. With one last huff, Arthur sat up from the granite headstone and lazily walked away from the graveyard.  
>-<p>

In truth, it really only was a headstone. Nothing was buried beneath the frozen earth, rotting in time. And there was nothing buried there because the man on the headstone was never found. Francis – a young Frenchman with a bit too much l'amour to handle himself – was never found after he had disappeared two years ago. Arthur, who would be too stubborn to ever admit it aloud, was devastated. The stuffy man had almost literally cried his eyes out at the news of Francis's disappearance.

And that's why, on this quite dreary Christmas morning, Arthur had found himself sitting over an empty tomb and talking to himself – the fae had been avoiding him lately. (Tinker especially.)

But nonetheless, just as he was rounding a curve in the marked path through the cemetery, Arthur found himself staring into the shadowed face of an extremely tall and lanky man standing just on the outskirts of the adjoining forest. The two men stood there – the taller seeming to sway more rather than stand at all. Arthur searched his face, looking for some kind of eye contact, but found none.

This is the third time Arthur has seen the man. The first time, the day the headstone was laid into the ground, he had called out to him, asking for a name. His only answer was the sound of the last few crisp leaves as they rustled in a slight autumn breeze. This time around, Arthur said nothing and just kept walking after forgetting about ever finding eye contact.  
>-<p>

"He was a weird bugger," Arthur said in that soft yet completely there British accent. "One of these days that bloody man will give me a heart attack!"

Alfred, Arthur's rather 'special' friend, was lounging on a ratty old yellow couch. If one were to upturn it, they would find underneath it, rusted, creaky springs, a dozen or so moths, and the king of all the dust bunnies.

"Dude, you totally need to chill out." Alfred pat Arthur on the back while wearing that signature smile that could melt even Satan himself. It's a shame it never worked on the blonde Brit.

"That man is up to something – I know it!" The previous statement went completely ignored, much to Alfred's annoyance. "He's probably a bloody grave robber, for Merlin's sake!"

"Yeah, and those fairies you're always talking to are his accomplices." Alfred sniggered.

Three days later, sporting an _Anarchist in the U.K._ T-shirt and black skinny jeans to show off his rather punkish side, Arthur stalked back into the cemetery, bypassing Francis' makeshift grave and heading straight towards that unsettling spot where even the graves dared not lay, between the end of the graveyard and the beginning of the forest. Disappointment and a sliver of relief hung over Arthur once he reached his destination.

The awkward man was nowhere to be found. There was a layer of snow covering the ground and the blonde man sneezed when he noticed that more snow had begun to fall. A flurry of snowflakes fluttered around him, blinding him for a moment. He blamed it on the fae – they really did love to mess with him. When the flurry passed, Arthur noticed a black tree swaying gently with the rest of them. That wasn't there before, right? Right?

The tree lifted up one long, slender branch – it was beginning to look more like a man's arm than a branch. The other lifted too so that the tree-turned-man was holding his arms out like a child would when they wanted their mother to hold them.

The gangly limbs swayed with the equally gangly body. He opened his mouth – a large 'o' that was pitch black with no teeth. A sound, that of a small child humming an innocent lullaby, came from it. This time, Arthur was able to see his eyes. They were sunken in so far they looked more like empty sockets. His skin was a sickly grey, stretched around his skull, and sagged in places. His hands, still outstretched, motioned listlessly for Arthur to step forward.

As if in a trance, Arthur did so. He took one step, as if testing his footing, then took another and another until he was right beside the ghastly man.

He turned, leading Arthur further into the forest and spoke not a word. The wind was picking up a bit, pushing them in even further. Arthur's heart was pounding wildly in his chest, but he kept following the man with no attempt at escape.

A clearing was coming up, which made sense since the forest had gotten considerably dense. Arthur took careful strides while the man seemed to float just above the ground. His arms were at his sides and Arthur took note that his fingers were almost dragging on the ground.

The first sight of the clearing was horrendous. Arthur nearly threw-up and he would have run if his legs would listen to his brain screaming for them to do something. But his legs wouldn't move. He was stuck in place and couldn't move.

In the clearing, a large white field was painted a pretty red. A single ring of trees stood in the center. On the trees, Francis was tacked up like some cheep ornament (odd though, he looked as if he hadn't aged a day). On the one to his left, another blonde, a shy, quiet boy from a few blocks where Arthur lived (and who had disappeared a while before Francis) was tied to the tree with what looked like vines. In all, there were seven people.

The man began walking toward the trees and Arthur felt his legs begin to move without his consent. In the back of his head, that little voice that always nagged to him when something was going wrong, began running its jaw a mile a minute. 'That crazy guy's going to do something! You need to get out of there!' Well, he would if he could.

The people on the tree looked as if they were sleeping comfortably and not tied to trees in the middle of a forest in the dead of winter. The man began unwrapping a bit of rope from one of the trees with no one attached. Once again, Arthur was unable to move himself. He was unable to do anything as the man began wrapping the rope around his torso, knotting it around the waist and then began tying him to the tree like the others.

In the background, Arthur could see the fairies that had been avoiding him for the past few weeks. They were dancing in that magical way of theirs, flittering around the floor of the clearing and laughing in their high, squeaking voices. They laughed at Arthur, pointing at him and joking with themselves as they watched the latest victim of the Slenderman fall unconscious.


End file.
